Advertisements on refrigerators too

Walking into his kitchen, Tim Yoder noticed a message on his refrigerator door: “Buy Samsung Water Filters.” Yoder has a Samsung Electronics Family Hub refrigerator. He paid $1.400 for the device, which features a 32-inch screen on the door that lets him control other Samsung gadgets, get recipes or stream music.

But since last fall, it has been running ads intermittently , part of a pilot program being tested on some of Samsung's smart refrigerators sold in the US.

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His response was not warm. “I guess this is another place for someone to shove an ad in your face,” said Yoder, 47, recalling the first time he noticed the event.

The ads only appear on certain Family Hub refrigerators that have displays and an internet connection. They appear as a rectangular banner at the bottom of a widget that also shows news, weather and a calendar.

Samsung declined to say how long the pilot program might last or whether it will end. The company recently unveiled a “Screens Everywhere” initiative that also includes washers, dryers and ovens…

Samsung began displaying the ads on refrigerators via a software update in October.

In a footnote to a press release from the time , the company committed to “serving non-personalized ads” and respecting data privacy. It should be noted that the ads can be turned off in settings.

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